CHART OF THE DAY: PRESENTING: The Ron Paul Gasoline Index

Ron Paul hectored Ben Bernanke in Congress, slamming him for printing paper money and lying about the true rate of inflation.

At one point, he held up a silver coin, and talked about how much gasoline he could get with it, and how silver retained its value over time (unlike the dollar).

Anyway, we've never seen anyone measure gasoline against silver before, so we thought we'd do it.

This chart shows how many gallons of gas you could get with an oz. of silver going back to 1990.

Back in about 1990, an ounce of silver only got you 4 gallons of gas. But as of very recently it got you 12 gallons of gas. However, thanks to the gas price surge and the fall in the price of silver, that's now down to 8 gallons per oz. So while that ounce of silver has done better than the dollar over time, it's still no ringing endorsement for price stability.